A Cold War Curiosity

     In a kind of Cold War allegory,  the Sept. 20, 1947 issue of "Time" featured the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs (who had been accusing the USA of warmongering, even before the UN) behind whom the artist—who designed over 300 "Times" covers—used a position from a game between a youthful American and a older Russian in which the overconfident Russian rashly overplayed his hand and was quickly crushed.

   This September 1947 headline earned the following response:

   Could it really get much colder?

"Chess Life" in its November, 1947 issue wrote:

"TIME" and Chess and Artist Meet
Featured in the background of a portrait of Vishinsky on the cover of Time magazine for September 20 was a chess board with men in position, white and red.  The artist, Ernest Hamlin Baker, knows his chess, for he conveys his opinion that Vishinky's tactics are obsolete by reproducing a position in the game, Marshall-Tchigorin, Monte-Carlo, 1902, in which modern theorists consider the Tschigorin's tactics were inadequate and obsolete.  Perhaps the pun was also conscious, for Marshall played the White pieces in the game.

Here is the Sept. 20, 1947 cover:

Andrei Vishinsky, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
"Life" magazine, August 30, 1948

   Here is the game (set to the same position):

   Curiously:

     "Life" magazine ran an article in its Jan. 29, 1940 issue in which Frank Marshall, touted as a great player and a great teacher, demonstrated this game in photos. He falsely claimed that Tchigorin resigned after 8. Qh5+ :

Maybe the Americans we're so trustworthy after all?

More about the 1902 Belle Epoch tournament to Monte Carlo ——-> Here.

Did Marshall write the piece? It is possible his words were condensed somehow so as to be taken out of context. Especially if the writer of the piece did not play chess. Or was this another kind of "swindle" from Marshall?

The words are quoted (" ") in the first person singular, so one is to assume they are exact quotes of Marshall's input.  The article itself is in the third person singular, so one would assume the author of the article itself isn't Marshall himself.  There's no byline.

I don't think this was a swindle since Marshall was never losing.

i just meant in a misleading sense as far as the contents of the article

In addition to the quotes are the article author's words:
Th author confirms (erroneously) it was an 8 move game,  but calls it a "swindle" which doesn't seem appropriate to this game. So it seems highly likely to me that the game score came from Marshall himself (it wouldn't be the first time he improvised).  I don't have available "My 50 Years of Chess" to see if Marshall has anything to say about the game there.

It's funny the article writer called it a "swindle."  But I think Marshall was playing fast and loose with the truth.  Maybe in his mind resignation was in order on move 8?

Wow thanks for clarifying. That does seem mighty shady on Marshall's part.

Thanks MaxDehn.

Actually Marshall doesn't mention it in his book.

I miss the Cold War. It seems quaint now. I can imagine this as a Twitter war, with our Tweeter in Chief issuing daily threats. 

 I never experience the "Cold War" but with the nuclear arms race it must have been a tense few decades for all involved.

Cold War

In a strategic point of view, things were easy :

1945-1949 : USA have monopol of nuc weapons

1950's : 2 nuc' countries, terror aequilibrium by "mutual destruction guaranteed" doctrine.

ie two major camps, red/US, one week of classic fight in Fulda (East germany) with tanks, 12000+ (USSR+allied) vs 6000- (Otan), then nuclear fight or peace.

East Europ under soviet influence, with a lovely "popular democracy" term, example of deny with ...redundancy!

1960's : to exist, UK bought Polaris nuc' rockets to USA and became which is stronger today : US biggest aircraft carrier, ie kind of 52th state like Puerto Rico without rum, giving Usa a major advantage in fighting vs "reds". Thus creation of sophisticated doctrine, after "total retaliation", "graduated", "flexible", henry kissinger's era.

France, China, India, Pakistan created their own nuc' industry, and things became more or less like today : very dangerous! Thus lotta people think good ole' days were btw 1945-1970. it seems reasonable to think so, because, for instance, leaders like North korean Premier would live still one hour , not more; in those days decisions were made, not shows. It seems that now to survive, the show will stop and let place to decisions again. No one would have tolerated three years ISIS, Boko Haram, etc ...In sphaeras of influence, USA and USSR instantaneously reacted. Clowns had not a chance.

Chess was, as any sport, part of communication war for people making comparizons btw USA and Ussr system. then came Reagan, "Star wars" incredible operation, and victory for USA. They were cleaver enough not to humiliate their defeated enemies; today they let say Vietnam war was lost, ...but u can buy coca cola shares in the lobby of Hilton Hanoi Opera. "Vae Victis' time let place to "business is business", which sounds  a win-win attitude.

nb thread deleted on first request , just historical analysis without any personal political ideological, etc ...judgment.

Thanks for those thoughtful, experiential insights,  anti-Pete.

The Fischer-Spassky match has been considered an event that symbolizes the Cold War.  But I found it interesting that chess had been used as such almost immediately after WWII.

in fact, "cold war" started according to recent studies , in ...1917, with western camp afraid either by a world revolution in Trotsky's mode,  or Stalin as a modern tsar just wanting USSR supremacy, not more, ..as a first step. Then chess was chosen for mass education, strategy and tactic exercises, before war games in military academies; 

in 1945, the expression "cold war" was created by George Orwell to define some "war in peace" atmosphaere existing since october 1917 revolution.

what is curious is USA did win "cold war"   1989, but had not 10 percent at those days of Ussr skills in chess. We may suppose Ussr were too dogmatic, and never could imagine such a move like Reagan's Star wars intox; may be Tal could have imagine that it was a fake, but he was too sick and close to his end (1992) to take part on brainstorming regulary organized by militar soviet academies (role wargames). May be Kasparov could have imagine that but didn't say it to militars because he secretly , like millions of realistics apparatchiks, wanted the end of a hopeless system. It could be interesting to know more about the behaviour of chess payrs invited to cogite during those days when they took part on war games.  Karpov seems more conformist, imho. 

concerning exercises to face nuc' fire in 50s-70s, it is interesting to realize that today the threat is BIGGER than ever (multipolarization of potentials actors) ...and the exercizes and training to survive disappeared ! useless, hopeless ? 

chess should be used in place of real wars, and the winner on the board should be declared the country winner on the battlefield, thus zero killed.

Andrey Vyshinski (Vishinski in journals) is bloody person in the history of USSR. From 1935 to 1939 he was Procurator General of the USSR, the legal mastermind of Stalin's Great Terror (Great Purge).  He is also attributed as the author of an infamous quote era of Great Terror: "Give me a man and I will find the crime." After that he worked Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (1940–1949) [on a ''Time's'' cover in this post], Minister of Foreign Affairs (1949–1953) and permanent representative of the USSR to the United Nations.

Position on the board is better, than image this Big Executioner.

Thanks for investigation, batgirl. Your article is interesting, as always.

In the 1960s your heart would skip a beat every time a television announcer said We interrupt this program to bring you this special news bulletin.

My elementary school never did "duck and cover" drills but some time after the Cuban Missile Crisis we all got a booklet to take home on preparing and provisioning your family's fallout shelter (which no one I knew had).  The only part I remember is "be sure to include shaving materials for Dad." 

Even at that early age I wondered how many men would be concerned with shaving following a nuclear war. 

. +1 it was essential for dad to be shaved not to be mixed confused with Castro or Che in case troopers came to deliver the shelter after nuc' fire;

yes we lived over ONE volcano, with a curious result: baby boom, as if our parents generously wanted to share apocalypse now with the maximum of babies, similar to today's food crisis in underdeveloped countries with the maximum of children.. As says the proverb "the more fool we have in a party, the more we laugh".

today it is not ONE but 10 nuc's potential volcanos, and people don't react to news for one reason : the manner medias talk about a missile from NKorea or Iran is the same they talk about the dog been smashed by a car at the corner of the street,  the handy bag beeing stolen on 5th Av., ie less than  jewels robbery in Champs Elysees for a TV reality show star. these media reality is disconnected from ...reality, dreams seem better.

O tempora, O mores.

concerning Vichynsky, it was full part of Stalin's terror, with Beria in the shadow. Chess was a weapon at four levels :

* international leadership,

** practice for developing personal skills,

*** war game training

**** national pillar of soviet culture.

nb actual leaders today are like a choir of angels comparing to them, imho.

In those days, things were easy, bipolar. Today multiple sources of threads make things really so sophisticated we can just enjoy today life and cross fingers on the future, and of course ...play chess to do away with thrill and stress. 

1. Interesting. I read 1984 some years ago but didn't have the proper mind to absorb it. Orwell mentions, as part of the doublethink principle, "war as peace", and if you stop to think about it it's pretty much one of the main capital wheel's spinners, that is, Concurrence as is.

2. Do you think every chess player at that time had wills of a political involvement? I mean, from your words it sounds like Tal was aware and participant around Cold War's content affairs. I just wanted to know if they really were so aware; plus, concerning Kasparov, I am really unaware of his personal life, beliefs and ideas, is he discordant to his motherland social system?

I don't miss it either. We went into the central hallway of our elementary school during air-raid drills and had to sit on the floor with our backs against the wall while we put our heads between our legs - the joke being so we could kiss our butts goodbye.  In 1st and 2nd grade, we kids often didn't know if it was a drill or the real thing.  Sirens from close and distant fire departments could be heard wailing. Some of the kids got so scared they wet their pants/dresses.

Then came the 60's. I remember walking a mile home from school in 1962 and moving fast so I could catch the latest on TV about the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Buy then I was old enough to know I really should be scared since I lived on the East Coast.  We listened to every word President Kennedy said and nervously waited to see if the Russian ships would confront the U.S. Naval Blockade around Cuba that was first 800 miles out in the Atlantic, then pulled back to 400 miles to give the Russians enough time to think.  Fortunately they did.